During World War II, U.S. Army soldier Steve Rogers volunteered to receive the experimental Super-Soldier Serum. Enhanced to the pinnacle of human physical potential, he became Captain America. After a failed mission left him encased in ice for decades, he was found and revived by the Avengers, later becoming the team's leader.

CAPTAIN AMERICA Goes Sci-Fi In His Upcoming Marvel NOW! Series

On Friday, October 26th Marvel revealed their plans for Captain America starting this November with the launch of Marvel NOW! The Captain America Liveblog featuring Marvel creators Rick Remender, John Romita Jr. and Tom Brevoort launched with Remender's discussion of how the series will experience a shift. The launch of Marvel NOW! will give the publisher the opportunity to tell new kinds of stories starring some of their biggest names -- Captain America included. According to the series' writer Rick Remender, the new Captain America book will take a turn to science fiction, of all things.

At the core of this book is Steve Rogers. Even though tonally you can expect a bit of a shift, the character still shines true. We're taking a drift into science fiction. Visually it will be pretty crazy. John is plugging away on issue #3 and it looks gorgeous…It's a large step away from the espionage spy stuff Ed Brubaker has been doing, but it's the same core character dropped in a new situation.

This isn't the first time Remender has written a strong, commanding character set in a sci fi-esque environment (FEAR AGENT, anyone?) so it will certainly be interesting to see whether the character bears any similarities to Remender's Captain America.

== TEASER ==

It won't just be Remender's writing that will envelop Captain America in this sci-fi world, it's everything from the layout of the story to the colors, too. Marvel colorist Dean White will be "taking a sepia approach" used on Black Panther several years ago, and applying it to John Romita Jr.'s pencils on this new series.

Yet, from what's been mentioned, it doesn't seem like this will be your run of the mill Captain America title. You can bet that Remender will throw in a whole lot of oddities, really testing Romita's skills as an artist. According to Romita, there were moments in which he thought he was drawing KICK-ASS.

Rick asked for a scene with a human Arnim Zola walking into his lab and then it's 1960's horror movie gore. I had a moment of thinking I was drawing Kick-Ass and had gotten my books confused… There are human heads on other things and so on. It gave me the willies. That doesn't happen a lot.

However, don't let this sashay into science fiction fool you, this is still an "action book…high adventure," according to Remender. Even though he's taking a turn into a new genre with the classic character, readers and fans should expect that Captain America will remain very much Cap -- that's not changing.

When I'm writing it, I can already envision it because it feels very similar tonally to Man Without Fear which John drew. It was important to show Steve earning the tenacity and heart, because you're not born with that. What you learn from your parents and the people around you informs your decisions and choices that define who you become. I've read up and done research on the Great Depression, a lot of recounts of amazing stories where people rose up and had hope that it would end even five years in. The optimism of Captain America is something I'm excited to write.

Fans can expect Arnim Zola to play a really big part in the start of this series, for sure, and it seems that Remender has big plans for the character. Plans that could very well redefine him.

Zola doesn't come out of this with anybody ever thinking he's a joke again. He's a high level madman, the top boss and the focus. But as always, there are henchmen. We've got Dough Boy, who is Jabba the Hutt as designed by Jack Kirby. When you see what John does with Zola's mutates and their weapons, it's wonderful, incredible big and exciting.

What do you think of Rick Remender and John Romita Jr's upcoming CAPTAIN AMERICA series? Do you think it's a good idea to integrate a little bit of sci-fi into this series? Are you looking forward to Remender's vision of the character?

After 8 awesome years, I will be able to figure out if Cap is my favorite character because of Brubaker's writing or because of who Cap really is (well as real as a fictional character can be) because this seems as far from Brubaker's series one could imagine.

I'll admit, the art looks better than I first thought it would. hopefully it will stay this way, though one thing I wish they would do is keep Cap's new design with other artist. There have been at least four different redesigns so far, I wish they would create one and have all of the artist stick with that one.

honestly I am not looking forward to this. I was until Remender said that this would be more sci-fi and less espionage/agent like. Brubaker is the reason I loved reading Captain America. This is just a turn off. I will just wait until the whole sci-fi stories end.

I like this cap much better. I really hated the scaly chainmail and wings. The wings were never a part of the new design so I'm confused as to why he still has them and why he doesn't have the hexagonal armor instead now. (What title is this pic from? I might pick it up for the art)